GeneralOfDeath wrote:The 2nd ammendment is the only one to state a purpose for it's existance, which is where your confusion is coming from. A militia, such as existed in the 18th century, consisted of everyone and their dog who wanted to join bringing their own privately owned weapons. Think about this logically. When the 2nd was penned, a weapon was considered a nesecarry tool of survival in most of America, allowing one to hunt and to defend against thieves/indians.

Actually, when the 2nd Amendment was originally penned, it looked like this:

The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil powers.

But this version was rejected! While most of the Bill of Rights were copied unchanged from the anti-Federalists' "Reasons of Dissent," they made some big changes to the 2nd Amendment. They very specifically took OUT any idea that the Constitutional justification for guns had anything to do with hunting or self-defense. The only reason for gun rights at the Constitutional level was for the state militias. Lesser gun regulation was handled by the states, and not a matter for Constitutional attention.

Natalya wrote:What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of how banned you are.

The whole state's rights argument seems stupid. If every state makes there own laws, people will just shop for guns in the states with the laxest gun laws. Why is the federal government regulating guns so much more objectionable than states regulating guns, anyway? I don't trust the State of Washington any more than the feds.

Zupponn wrote:Exactly. The people who want guns are going to have them no matter what happens, so what's the point?

This is my feeling about murder also. If somebody wants you dead, they'll find a way to kill you, so why bother making it illegal?

Indeed, if there is anything a human being can it's murder.

It reminds me of a great short story where a scientist working for a military involved in a global war developed a metal eating microbe and released it with the naive believe that without guns or vehicles the war would end.The General interrogating and eventually trying to execute him, being a true Hero of the Brikverse, picks up the leg of a chair he'd just smashed and comments, "There's always a good piece of wood!"

Well, lets take a second just to impart a basic level of understanding of just what a firearm is, and how they operate.

All you need to fire a cartridge is a pin to impact the primer, a tube to channel the flow of gasses into propulsion, and some way to close up the area around the pin so that the bullet goes forward, along the tube.

A firearm can be as simple as a pipe with a small hole drilled through the back for a nail to fit through- then all you have to do is hit the nail hard enough, and it'll fire (typically this is done with a spring).

The image above also shows a the slide cycling the weapon, which allows you to get the empty cartridge out without having to open up the gun and take it out, like you would in a break-action shotgun or similar. Additionally, it shows a magazine feeding more cartridges into the chamber, this is very simply accomplished with a spring and a slight slope to slide the ammunition up. For an automatic weapon, you use a piston driven by either some of the gas of an escaping bullet or a motor to operate the slide for you.

A firearm can be built with comparative ease with a decent workshop, something like the AK i showed earlier required a vise, rivets (could be driven in with a hammer or a rivet gun), a furnace, anvil, and dremel (although the guy used a plasma cutter, he could have got by without one).

If you really want to be pedantic, you could do all of that work with just a hand file, but jesus that would take forever.

Now that sort of equipment is pretty much available, some of it is expensive but just about all of it could be pinched from construction sites. You can even get by without that much!

Using standard plumbing parts, one can build a pistol-caliber (the pipes are not strong enough to perform reliably with anything stronger than medium-grain .45 loads) automatic rifle or pistol, using NO standard tools at all- a hammer and a screwdriver are used in the plans but the work could be done with a rock and a coin, or similar.

You, most likely wrote:Okay, so like, what does this have to do with anything?

It means that a total gun ban (or even a partial one) would be very difficult to enforce.

China has such a ban, and here are the products of a man working with NO commercial gun parts at all! This brilliant Chinese tinker created a few working pistols using parts from airsoft guns (ie toys), nail-gun cartridges, and homemade bullets.

A heavy black market for automatic weapons exists in Brazil, where they are rather common

Here is a Brazillian .38 Special revolver made from a staple gunTranslation (my Portuguese is not very good) : Eight shots, the chamber is operated by hand

And finally, in Ireland, where conditions are pretty similar to those that would be if the US had a full-gun ban, a loyalist Irishman produced these in a factory-

Although less articulately, I wrote the exact same thing but with different examples last page.

Silverdream wrote:

Zupponn wrote:

Bragallot wrote:It's not an experiment we'd be able to do, but give one psycho an assault rifle and another a knife, and send them into a school. Who would get the most kills? Which school would you rather be in? Which guy would you have the best chance of disarming, or running from? I think the choice is easily made. Guns, no matter what other views you have on them, are certainly the easiest way of killing large amounts of people.

If a person is going to do this in a world where guns are "outlawed", he'd find a way to get a gun anyways.

Pwnerade wrote:The whole state's rights argument seems stupid. If every state makes there own laws, people will just shop for guns in the states with the laxest gun laws. Why is the federal government regulating guns so much more objectionable than states regulating guns, anyway? I don't trust the State of Washington any more than the feds.

The premise of states having the power is basically what our country was founded on in the first place, though this is mainly because we began as a series of independent colonies.

That aside, the idea that states ought to govern themselves makes more sense in these ways:

It brings the decision making process closer to a more local population, rather than having the same laws for 300 million people.

Culture still differs from state to state, so what works for people in one part of the country may not work for people all over the country. If individual states have control of their own laws, it allows them to make the most effective and most agreeable laws for the local populace.

Finally, it makes revisions and changes a bit easier to effect. The federal government takes forever to make and repeal and revise laws because it's a very large governing body. If things were left up to the states, action could be taken much quicker than it can now with most regulations being made on the federal level.

Actually, additionally, the whole, "If you don't like it, just move." thing would actually work, since the larger difference in state laws would lead to people living where they actually wanted to.

I mean, think about it: If you want to impose a gun ban or legalize marijuana or whatever, you can get that done SO MUCH EASIER by returning governmental power to the individual states, and things would be great!

Why the hell do you need things to suit you in places you don't live, anyway?

My point is that if my home state makes a law requiring universal background checks for all gun purchases, it won't matter, because a convicted murderer could still buy a gun in a state without universal background checks. Each state having its own laws has its drawbacks. For instance, each state used to set their own drinking age, but that sucked, because people would just cross state lines to drink. It actually encouraged drunk driving, because people would drive really far, drink as much as they could, and then go on a long drive home. I'm not against states having their own laws in many cases, but certain things work better when whole country has the same rules. We're not a collection of independent colonies anymore.